


Parison Felicity

by Permanent_Press



Category: Video Blogging RPF, jacksepticeye
Genre: Is it bad that they kiss in the second paragraph, Jack Is In A Coma, Memories, Oops, Separated Chase
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-24 04:15:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16632731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Permanent_Press/pseuds/Permanent_Press
Summary: Sometimes broken things make us better people.





	Parison Felicity

Sifting through pieces for a shade of grey like his eyes.  It’s a challenge. How can you replicate something so delicate?  He supposes you can’t really, but eventually something emerges from the pile like the shade in his memory.  It feels almost wet on one side – smooth like glass….like the memory of their first kiss, which wasn’t smooth at all.  Memories are strange like that…deceptive with fluid edges and blind corners that trip you up.  Unreliable at best.

Still.

_He remembers feeling like a live wire – all fire and excited atoms dancing in a flesh suit – before the soft scent of half sleeping skin filled his nose and his trembling lips were pressed hopefully against Henrik’s.  The realization that there was no turning back broke fully on him and he thought he might explode from the inside like a dying star…but then a hand on his waist gently tugging him nearer, a low moan more felt than heard.  Henrik’s fingers wove through his and suddenly the star in his chest collapsed instead, pulling all the agitation and heat from his extremities – warm fire settling behind his navel._

_Henrik pulled back, skin flushed, warm eyes searching for validation.  “Chase are you…are you sure?”_

He pulls a blanket around his shoulders now and swipes a thumb across the little square in his hand.  Not quite the same shade.  A compromise…but it would have to do.

* * *

 

This would be much easier if he were alone.  He is not alone.  There is a doctor in here with him.  He’s leaning against the brushed steel wall of the elevator, lab coat a white blob as it halos out behind him.  He thinks that should make him feel better when out of nowhere the realization that doctors have aided in (thousands?) hundreds of incidences of death being cheated of its rightful reward makes his mouth a little drier.  Surely that bill comes due in a hurry.

He is studying the elevator panel, red light blinking to let them know help is on the way, when his companion casually slides down to sit on the floor, legs crossed in his green scrubs.

He must feel Chase’s eyes on him for he looks up and smiles.  “We could be here a while, last time this happened it was a good two hours before someone showed up.  We might as well get comfortable.”  The elevator seems to close in on him from all sides as he contemplates hours in here, hanging six stories above the ground floor and he suddenly feels very dizzy. He manages to gently slide himself to the floor next to the doctor, now busy typing out a text message.  

“It would be a miracle if this sends, but I might as well try.”  He’s typing furiously and Chase finds the movements of his thumbs oddly comforting.  His fingers sneak their way into his pocket and he removes a small circular object, his thumb running over the familiar design etched on one side repeatedly, like the warm up to a well-rehearsed sleight of hand magic trick.  The elevator walls recede a little and he’s finally able to think a bit more clearly.  He flips the chip on its edge, begins tracing his name next. This little ritual had kept him out of numerous bars over the months. The doctor stops typing, stares at the screen.  “How long have you been in the program?”

His thumb stops dead, eyes drift to the dull black floor of the elevator. He should be used to this question by now but it always seems to catch him off guard.  “Three months.”

But of course a lot of other things have changed in three months, and Chase’s voice doesn’t sound particularly proud or optimistic. Mostly because he isn’t. The program can help fix the blackout drunk days and the hangovers, the dry heaves and shaking. It can’t fix his broken marriage or the way his kids won’t look at him when he visits.

And of course it doesn’t change why he’s here, not one bit.

“A lot of people don’t make it that far.” His tone is gentle, but not patronizing. Chase looks up trying to gauge just where this man is coming from, and is startled. Grey eyes lock onto his and some kind of impossibly large certainty tries to wedge itself into his head…but he shoves it away for later - or never, who knows.

“I’m Dr. Schneeplestein, but everyone just calls me Henrik.” He says it like they’re friends, which Chase finds a little comforting. God knows it would have been unbearable to be trapped in an elevator for hours with an asshole. Speaking of asshole behavior, he’s been silent entirely too long.

“Henrik. Good to know you, I’m Chase.” He palms the chip, slips it back into his pocket. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around before. I’m here most days visiting a friend.”  He tries to make it sound casual but on the whole he’s not sure he succeeds.

“Ah, I’ve been on the night rotation for a couple months now. Of course they won’t let you keep one shift forever, huzzah bureaucracy, so I’m back on days as of yesterday. At least for a while.” He looks back at the screen. “Well. Looks like my fears are confirmed - no service in the elevator.” Putting the phone away, he stretches his arms high above his head, back bowing out from the blurry silver wall.  He makes a near half circle of a human, bones cracking, before relaxing back again.

Just has his back settles against the wall the lights flicker twice.  They first look up to the ceiling and then at each other, and Chase sees that Henrik has braced himself, palms flat on the floor, for catastrophe.

The second their eyes lock the lights well and truly go out.  Chase isn’t even sure the doctor is breathing, it’s so quiet in here now.  He realizes he is also holding his breath and it all comes out in a whoosh.  He draws in an unsteady draft of air while attempting to collect himself, and nearly yelps when he feels a hand, cold from being pressed into the elevator floor, settle on his.

“Just…checking to make sure you’re still there.  Are you alright?”  The voice is a little shaky and Chase can’t fault him in the least for that.  

“Well,” he starts, quite a bit more confidently than he was expecting,  “we’re still here, so yeah I’m okay.  I guess the only thing that’s really changed is now it’s dark.”  But instead of retreating, the hand stays.  With the lights out his other senses have been elevated to almost overwhelming levels.  The starched cotton folding as Henrik reaches for something, the sound of rubber soles against the smooth floor as he moves closer.  The shift in the air between them - space shrinking, sound waves bouncing more quickly between objects.  And all the time, that hand over his.  He can’t tell who is compensating for temperature anymore, whether he’s cooled down or Henrik has warmed up.  Touching him.

And then suddenly - light.  

“Aha!  Well, this is not so bad I think.  Better than total darkness surely.”  Henrik unlocks his phone between them, squints at the harshness of the light. “A bit too much perhaps.”  And the hand is suddenly gone as the doctor withdraws it to adjust the brightness of his phone.  

“There.”  He smiles over at Chase, who can no longer tell if the eyes looking out at him are any color at all in the soft white glow.   “I thought…well we may not be able to obsessively check the news, but we could at least use it to see by.” The phone dims a little and Chase catches the wallpaper background.  Someone is bundled up tight in a blue ski suit giving the thumbs up to the camera.

“You ski?” 

Henrik moves the phone to see what Chase is pointing at and it lights up brightly again.  

“Oh yes.  Or rather, I did … once.  The head of the surgery department thought it would be a good bonding exercise for a couple of us.  A weekend in the mountains, good exercise, lots of chatting around the fire.”  He snorts, the corners of his mouth lifting in a mischievous grin.  “When he came back to the lodge early one afternoon and walked in on…let’s say a preeminent plastic surgeon…schtupping his wife, well….I uh.  I’m not quite sure that was the bonding he was going for.  Needless to say, we left pretty quickly after that.”

Henrik’s face falls a little.  

“Do you know, I never did master stopping?  You’re supposed to wedge your skis in a way that slows you down and go from side to side.” He demonstrates, hands wedged into a V shape swooping in the space between them. The phone glows like a lit snow globe against his leg. “I’m fairly certain that snow was not of the ordinary variety.  I must have fallen thirty times that day.”

Retrieving the phone, he swipes through a fairly large photo album.  Chase sees two kids and a dog, but they go by so fast he can’t make out their features.  

There’s the man himself dressed in blue jeans at a rock concert, two tiny parkas and two big parkas with ruddy faces in the snow, four sandcastles along the shore at the beach.

Loneliness, a familiar companion by now, creeps up on him.

“Can I ask you a question doc?”

“Henrik, please…doc was my father.”

Chase raises an eyebrow inquisitively.

“Of course not, I was joking - well, _attempting_ to joke.” A little self -deprecating chuckle. “Anyway, you were saying?”

“I…my friend, the one I come visit,” he traces the corner of his mouth, fingernail painfully grazing the skin there to keep his attention focused on the present. He suddenly feels stupid asking this, and quite unsure of whether he really wants an answer. “His name’s Jack. There was an…accident we think, a while back.”

_Careful, Chase…_

He takes a deep breath and then.

“Everyone says he can hear me when I talk to him. Is that…do you think that’s true?”

Henrik is silent for a long moment.  The light from the phone dims yet again, but he makes no move to wake it.   Just as his mouth opens to speak, a muffled shout sounds from the other side of the elevator doors.

“Sit tight, we’ll have you out in a moment.”

“Hm. That was fast.” Chase can’t help but notice the edge of disappointment in his voice. “Still, I suppose it is rather late - must be a lot fewer folks trapped in elevators around the city this time of day.”

For all the fuss of elevators, their operation is fairly straightforward.  There is no heroic door wedging, no squealing and scraping of metal against metal, no dramatic climb between floors.  In fact, Chase is shocked when the doors part in near silence. 

“You guys comin’ out or what?”    

So they do.  Chase takes a deep breath, glad to be out of the elevator, and instantly regrets his decision.  This is a place of sickness after all.  Still, he could have been so much mush sixty feet below an hour ago.  The thought makes him shiver.

“Mister Brody,” Henrik motions in the direction of the stairs, and perhaps it’s the elation of finally being free of that massive steel box, or perhaps it’s temporary insanity, but out slips

“C'mon Doc, Mister Brody was my dad.”

Henrik laughs, a deeply satisfying sound that Chase smiles to hear. “That’s fair…ah, that’s very fair. Sorry my friend, a force of habit on my part.” Perhaps they are both a little giddy then.

They reach the parking garage sometime later, six flights of worth of echoing footfalls ringing in their ears, and stand looking around at cars bathed in off green fluorescent lighting.

“I believe you still need an answer to your question, yes?”

But suddenly he’s nervous, even though he has no reason to be.  “Nah that’s alright.” He shrugs, runs a hand through his hair. “Besides, I’m sure you get asked that stuff all the time.”

“Actually, hardly anyone asks me the interesting stuff. We could maybe grab a bite, continue this conversation?” The hopeful lift in his voice is unmistakable.

Chase is trying to remember the last thing he’d eaten, but finds he can’t quite recall eating…ever. What’s happening to his brain? 

“Yeah alright. Sure. Why not?” He smiles, a genuine thing through the nerves and Henrik smiles back…everything is absolutely fine for just a moment.

“Terrific, come this way. I know a great burger joint just around the corner.”  Henrik claps an arm across his shoulders.  “How do you feel about milkshakes?”

Chase can’t tell if he’s joking, and right then it doesn’t matter.  For now he doesn’t feel like a problem that has to be solved, a piece that doesn’t quite fit.  For now he doesn’t feel alone, and that’s wonderful.


End file.
